In Praise of Shadows for three players and electronics 9 min
Aurélio Edler-Copes
Seul(e) for harp and voice
7 min
Georges Aperghis
Ruinen for solo tuba
8 min
Neo Hülcker other spaces for ensemble world premiere | commissioned by Lucerne Festival
20 min
Carola Bauckholt’s new piece is literally tailor made for the four percussionists who perform it. In Hirn & Ei, they wear Gore-Tex rain jackets, wiping and rubbing their surfaces to elicit a variety of rhythms and sounds. Performative approaches and the relationship between sound and body are the focus of this opening event of the 2025 Forward Festival. Georges Aperghis stages a kind of mini-theater for tuba, in which the instrument is breathed, sung, and spoken into. Kotoka Suzuki uses homemade instruments built out of paper. With the help of electronics, the crackling and rustling that results gives rise to a fascinating world of sound. And in a brand-new work, Neo Hülcker interrogates the sound of our dreams: “How can their often strange processes be composed?”
CHF
Sat 22.11.
Orchestra Concert
18.30
KKL Luzern, Concert Hall
Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
Johanna Malangré conductor
Helga Karen piano
Patricia Kopatchinskaja violin
Anastasia Kobekina cello
Markus Güdel lighting
Sofia Gubaidulina
Introitus. Concerto for piano and chamber orchestra
25 min
Shawn Jaeger
Mountains Are Fountains for string orchestra world premiere | commissioned by Lucerne Festival
12 min
PatKop
Five Dreams for violin, cello, and chamber orchestra world premiere of the new version 24 min
This concert has no intermission.
CHF 100/70/30
Patricia Kopatchinskaja returns to the Forward Festival for the third time. Joined by the acclaimed young cellist Anastasia Kobekina, she will perform her own double concerto, which she premiered in 2024 under the title a Play and has now revised. In this work, personal experiences and encounters reverberate across five dreamlike scenes. We also commemorate Sofia Gubaidulina, who passed away in March. Her creative work was deeply rooted in faith. The piano concerto Introitus, for example, seeks to gradually draw the listener into spiritual contemplation. Finally, Shawn Jaeger presents a new work written for Lucerne Festival Forward, scored for 25 strings, in which “dense harmonies rise and erode, like mountains,” according to the composer.
Charlotte Hug voice, viola, live scoring of temporary “son-icons”
Soloists of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
Markus Güdel lighting
Tapiwa Svosve Woodworks, vol. 5
Charlotte Hug Multiple Encounters in Constant Change
This Late Night event will last 60 minutes and has no intermission.
CHF 30 (open seating)
Music born in the moment: together with two utterly different Swiss musical figures, soloists of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) will explore improvisational approaches. The saxophonist Tapiwa Svosve comes from a jazz background but works in an interdisciplinary and conceptual way to pioneer new sonic realms. The performer and composer Charlotte Hug, for her part, works at the intersection of body, sound, and visual art. Using brushes and water, she creates fleeting “son-icons” on large lengths of fabric: soon fading, and overlaid by additional drawings, they serve as a score for the musicians, who move around the space and work together in ever-changing constellations.
Tapiwa
Sun 23.11.
Family Concert
11.00, 11.20, and 11.40
in and around the KKL Luzern
Meeting point: Inseli Park
Lucerne School Children
Soloists of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
Phoebe Bognár flute, concept, direction
Estelle Costanzo harp, concept, direction
Helga Karen piano, concept, direction
“Water Music”
A musical journey around water — for school classes, musicians, and musical objects
55 min
For everyone ages 6 and above
This concert has no intermission.
CHF 20/10 (adults/children)
Reserve your preferred time slot at lucernefestival.ch/water-music
Can you make music with nothing more than a bottle, a glass and some water? What does water sound like? What does its splashing remind us of? What do we dream of when we see a ship disappearing on the horizon? Tailoring their work for the Forward Festival, musicians from the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO) are collaborating with Lucerne school classes to develop a sonic expedition that traces the music of water. Divided into three groups, the audience will travel from the shores of Lake Lucerne, where pebbles move with the waves, making clicking and clacking sounds, to the KKL Luzern, where the vibrating strings of bowed instruments create sound waves. The motto: if everyone provides a drop of music, the result will be the symphony of an entire ocean.
Sonic Happening
15.00–18.00
in and around the KKL Luzern
Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra (LFCO)
Chamber orchestra, ensembles, conductors, and soloists from the Hochschule Luzern — Musik
Lucerne Youth Wind Orchestra
Students from the Music School of the City of Lucerne
String orchestra from Superar Suisse Carnival groups Äxgüsi, För d’Föchs & Mariecholler
Joseph Sieber musical director and many more
Daniel Ott/Enrico Stolzenburg
Draussen Drinnen (“Outside Inside”)
A composition for the city and the KKL Lucerne featuring more than 300 participants from the region world premiere | commissioned by Lucerne Festival
Reserve your preferred time slot at lucernefestival.ch/outside-inside
Just over 300 performers — including professional musicians, music students and amateurs, local Carnival bands, whip-crackers, and tap dancers from the entire region will join together for this sonic happening, developed by Daniel Ott and Enrico Stolzenburg, which blurs the conventional lines between indoors and outdoors, concert hall and city, high culture and ordinary life. In Part 1, audiences are led in small guided groups through the KKL Luzern, entering spaces normally off-limits to the public, such as rehearsal rooms, basements, or echo chambers, where they listen to a multifaceted array of sounds: live music from inside and outside the KKL blends with environmental sounds and pre-recorded cityscapes. Part 2 brings everyone together for a grand tutti musical finale in the Concert Hall.
Join in! We’re looking for fencers, table tennis players, and tap dancers. Register starting 5 August at lucernefestivalch.ch/ registration-outside-inside
With friendly support from the UBS Culture Foundation
Sat 22.11.
Book Launch & Panel Discussion
16.00
KKL Luzern, Auditorium
Free admission
In collaboration with the Bern University of the Arts
“Where is contemporary music headed — or has it reached its end?”
Michael Haefliger welcome address
Thomas Gartmann, Doris Lanz, and Raphaël Sudan introduction and book presentation
Panel discussion (in German) with Charlotte Hug composer and performer
Daniel Ott composer
Tapiwa Svosve saxophonist
Mark Sattler dramaturg of Lucerne Festival’s Contemporary Section
Gabrielle Weber moderator
Looking back and ahead: Founded 125 years ago and dissolved in 2017, the Swiss Musicians’ Association (Schweizerischer Tonkünstlerverein) played a pivotal role in shaping the country’s contemporary music scene. This exhibition traces its impact through archival documents, photographs, and eyewitness accounts. It also introduces two new companion
volumes by musicologists Thomas Gartmann, Doris Lanz, and Raphaël Sudan: In the Eye of the Storm: The Swiss Musicians’ Association 1975–2017 and Musical Discourses after 1970 (both in German only). A discussion in German of the current state of contemporary music will follow.
Sat 22.11. & Sun 23.11.
Exhibition
Saturday: 15.00–22.00
Sunday: 16.00–18.00
KKL Luzern, lakeside foyer
Free admission
“In the Eye of the Storm: 125 Years of the Swiss Musicians’ Association”
Exhibition curated by Thomas Gartmann, Doris Lanz, Gabrielle Weber, and Raphaël Sudan in collaboration with the Bern University of the Arts
learn more at: hkb-interpretation.ch/ausstellung-stv
THANK YOU!
New music experiences need strong partners with vision. We sincerely thank our Partners for their forwardlooking commitment!
Partners
Carla Schwöbel-Braun | Gitti Hug | John and Patricia B. Ziel | Landis & Gyr Stiftung | Regula Gerber | UBS Kulturstiftung | Walter B. Kielholz Foundation
Cooperation Partners
Canton and City of Lucerne, Grants and Subsidies | KKL Luzern, Event Partner | Luzern Tourismus | MetaDesign, Partner in Communication | Radio SRF 2 Kultur, Media Partner
Many thanks also go to the Lucerne Festival Friends and to all those supporters who do not wish to be mentioned by name.
Lucerne Festival is a member of
Official Rail Carrier
LUCERNE FESTIVAL
FRIENDS
Support Lucerne Festival and enjoy many benefits:
• invitations to Friends events including rehearsals, meetings with artists, and concert introductions
• access to the Friends Lounge during the Summer Festival
• priority booking
• organized Friends trips featuring an exclusive cultural program
Become part of our international patrons’ community of music enthusiasts. We look forward to meeting you!
Please contact us for more information Isabelle Köhler
t +41 (0)41 226 44 52 friends@lucernefestival.ch lucernefestival.ch/friends
YOUNG FRIENDS
Join us up to age 35!
TICKETING INFORMATION
Tickets available starting 5 August 2025, at 10.00 am (Swiss time)
Online lucernefestival.ch
By telephone
+41 (0)41 226 44 00
Mon–Fri from 10.00 am to 12.00 noon (Swiss time); throughout each festival (including the week when each festival begins), telephone hours extend to between 2.00 and 4.00 pm.
We are also available by telephone on weekends (Saturday and Sunday) while the festival is under way.
